The Landscape of a Pilgrimage

    
    When I lived in Great Bend Kansas I longed for curved streets.  Our streets, like most in the midwest, were in a fairly rigid grid.  You could ALWAYS go around the block.  Even though I didn't drive, I always knew where I was.  I found that when I returned to Great Bend later in life (having moved away when I was 10), I could drive drive around the town (admittedly, it's not that big) and knew I would not get lost.
   When we went on vacation we would sometimes end up in areas where the streets had these beautiful curves and you didn't know what would be around the next one.   Very different from Kansas (especially where I was and in western KS) where you could see the next town's water tower while miles away.  Now there's something very reassuring and helpful in knowing that you could easily locate yourself in a well-laid out town.  But I still wanted to have some mystery.
    So imagine my delight when I moved to New England.  Things got very interesting.  I quickly learned that driving in Boston did not mean a few streets curving into mystery - my entire driving experience in Boston was a submersion in mystery!  But still, I love the curving highways, the neighborhoods that might have a way out, might not.  I enjoyed the changing landscape, the adventure of not always knowing where I was.
    I wonder if my desire for a little mystery might have been the beginning of my longing for pilgrimage.  A large part of pilgrimage is going to a place that is unfamiliar.  On the Camino I went from one landscape to the next:  mountains, rolling hills, plains, mesatas (flat land with tabletop like hills).  Each day included mystery as I walked new paths.  I relied on the yellow arrows and the scallop shells-- signs showing me the way as as the landscape changed and I appreciated their guidance.  But I also enjoyed waking up each morning wondering what I would see that day.
    The interesting thing is that the landscape has also changed on my accidental pilgrimage.  At first my world was smaller as I spent day after day in a short cycle between the bed and the bathroom.  I had time to pay attention to how the sunlight struck the walls differently during the day.  I noticed how the snow collected in our garden out the window.  As I figured out how to move around the landscape of our living room it changed with the addition of a TV tray to hold my laptop and my husband was bumped from his side of the couch to the other side so I could keep my left leg elevated.  The landscape of our house continued to change as I went from walker to crutches and from cast to walking boot to brace.  The landscape changed again when I borrowed a knee scooter and was able to be a little helpful in the kitchen.  It changed still again when I could put weight on my left foot and was finally able to walk across the street to my office.  These changes were also shrouded in mystery as I learned early on not to anticipate what was on the path ahead.
    But I think our internal landscape also changes as we continue on a pilgrimage.  I think of when I was walking the last week of the Camino.  I was doing many things differently having left behind some of my fears along the way, having learned to trust God more deeply.  In my accidental pilgrimage it wasn't so clear when I was nearing the end, until my doctor appointment in May.  When he told me to give the ultra sound six more weeks and to keep walking - changing to a brace in a few weeks, I knew I was coming to the end.  Though the June appointment might carry the news of my needing a bone graft, fear and disappointment did not rise up in me.  Rather I knew I could leave this with God.   I knew deep inside of me that I had once again left behind fears and continued (continue) to trust God more deeply.  With the end of this pilgrimage my inner landscape has once again changed.
   So last Friday, June 21st, my accidental pilgrimage ended.  The bone is not healing, but I was told to keep walking on it as long as there is no pain (using the brace).  I can even start hiking.  I'll go back in two months and we'll see... we'll see.   But as the muscles and tendons in my ankle and foot strengthen, my faith in God strengthens also.  Healing may not come the way I expected back at the beginning in January, but it will come.  Maybe healing has already come to other parts of my life thanks to this accidental pilgrimage.  I still have much to think about, to be grateful for, to look forward to.  
   I believe these smaller pilgrimages help us on the larger pilgrimage of life itself.  Each time our inner landscape changes, each time we accept God's love, move beyond fear and put our trust in God, we come closer to living deeply with the mystery that comes with the landscape of God.  Maybe the mystery I sought in a winding road as a child was the beginning of my search for God.  
     May God be with you and the landscape of your pilgrimage through life.  And may each curve in the road bring you surprises from the Great Mystery and closer to the landscape of God.